ndemned."

But, in proportion as the young girl thus confirmed her sincerity,
the brow of the countess grew darker and sterner, and passing blushes
mantled her cheek. At last she said with haughty irony,--

"Admirable!"

"Madam!"

"You condescend to give up M. de Boiscoran. Will that make him love
me? You know very well he will not. You know that he loves you alone.
Heroism with such conditions is easy enough. What have you to fear?
Buried in a convent, he will love you only all the more ardently, and he
will execrate me all the more fervently."

"He shall never know any thing of our bargain!"

"Ah! What does that matter? He will guess it, if you do not tell him.
No: I know what awaits me. I have felt it now for two years,--this agony
of seeing him becoming daily more detached from me. What have I not done
to keep him near me! How I have stooped to meanness, to falsehood,
to keep him a single day longer, perhaps a single hour! But all was
useless. I was a burden to him. He loved me no longer; and my love
became to him a heavier load than the cannon-ball which they will fasten
to his chains at the galleys."

Dionysia shuddered.

"That is horrible!" she murmured.

"Horrible! Yes, but true. You look amazed. That is because you have as
yet only seen the morning dawn of your love: wait for the dark evening,
and you will understand me. Is not the story of all of us women the
same! I have seen Jacques at my feet as you see him at yours: the vows
he swears to you, he once swore to me; and he swore them to me with the
same voice, tremulous with passion, and with the same burning glances.
But you think you will be his wife, and I never was. What does that
matter? What does he tell you? That he will love you forever, because
his love is under the protection of God and of men. He told me,
precisely because our love was not thus protected, that we should be
united by indissoluble bonds,--bonds stronger than all others. You have
his promise: so had I. And the proof of it is that I gave him every
thing,--my honor and the honor of my family, and that I would have
given him still more, if there had been any more to give. And now to be
betrayed, forsaken, despised, to sink lower and lower, until at last
I must become the object of your pity! To have fallen so low, that you
should dare come and offer me to give up Jacques for my benefit! Ah,
that is maddening! And I should let the vengeance I hold in my hands
slip from me at y